Dealing with needy colleague

[Thepeopleversuswork]

Wonder if anyone has any advice: I'm at my wits' end with this. Sorry, long.

I have a colleague who is constant need of support, advice, feedback, hand-holding and its driving me absolutely nuts.

She's not junior, mid-level role, mid 30s and has been with the firm well over a year so it's more than teething problems. She calls or Teams messages me five or six times a day to discuss REALLY trivial things about the job which she should either know herself by now or know which channels to go through. Or unilaterally puts meetings in my diary with her without checking first.

I'm senior but not leadership, three levels above her and she doesn't report into me I think she just finds me sympathetic. But she has a lot of support already in place and it's really not my job to deal with it.She's got two senior mentors (from the top management) and a line manager already, (none of them me).

She's technically good at her job but struggles with "soft" skills: boundaries/inappropriate behaviour/wasting time and generally bad at reading a room. Has had various flare-ups with people over her manner. Very bad at taking any criticism or feedback, which tends to trigger tears, accusations of victimisation and requests for more support from management/training etc. Numerous people have tried to coach her through various aspects of this (not being too much of a drain on management time, asking questions appropriately, not hogging conversation etc) and she takes all of it incredibly personally and it triggers tears etc. All of this has been raised at performance reviews. She's been told to stop bothering people (including me) with tiresome questions and demands for more mentoring etc.

I was giving her the benefit of the doubt -- and I'm generally a big fan of giving people time and of mentoring and support and helping them adapt culturally. But it's got to the point where dealing with her requests is a massive drain on both my time and emotional resources.

I've started screening calls and I will say "can you just email me and I'll come back when I have time?" etc, but she still hasn't got the message - every professional interaction I have with her leads to a request for a "debrief" or "feedback" and a meeting being booked in my diary. It's as if any engagement at all is seen as a green light to ask for more. I'm now at the point where I'm considering asking her not to contact me at all without a specific business need, or asking HR to do this, but I know this is going to trigger another furious meltdown. Should I do this or should I ask my managers/HR to do it?

My own line manager does this to me - she joined on a temporary contract five months ago after my previous line manager left and seems to have decided I am the go to for showing her how to do everything (though she has had training). She keeps trying to get me to do parts of her job that she hasn't bothered finding out how to do and it is just too much. I am doing 12 hour days trying to get through my own workload at the moment and just don't have time for it.

She did it again on Friday when I was working on something super urgent, wanted me to leave my own work and run a report for her that she couldn't do. I flat out refused and pointed her in the direction of the training department.

It's all too much, it's getting so bad that I am considering leaving a job that I otherwise love.

The issue with having a mentor closer to her level is that she's fallen out with almost all of the people at her level

This is significanr in itself, and of course when you pass her back to her own line manager she'll probably fall out with you too

I'd normally query if she has proper support of her own, but since it's clear she does I'm afraid the SLT's idea of terminating her contract may be the only realistic option in the end

Would it not be better thought to request that SHE be taken off the account and it be allocated to someone else who retains the dotted-line to you? It is her failure to manage the account that is creating the problem (in this example). Surely she should lose the privilege? The more projects that are taken off her and reassigned, the better evidence for her PIP …

@SleepPrettyDarling

That would be tricky on these particular accounts because she holds the relationship and all hell would break loose if she was taken off them. I would far prefer to be taken off myself anyway tbh. They're a nuisance as far as I'm concerned. Low value from a financial perspective, hard work and not particularly interesting.

In terms of the PIP that has its own momentum. I've learned this morning she's been told she's not eligible for promotion at the end of this year. Nothing to do with me. It's going to get quite ugly and I think she may leave.

I would also say do not be vague and wishy-washy in your responses to her which might encourage her belief that you are the right person to help her and would really want to if only if it wasn't for the fact you were so busy or didn't have 'problems at home'...(wtf)
'Please raise this in our scheduled catch-up next week' or 'This is not my responsibility, please speak with your LM', or 'this is not relevant to our shared work, I don't have the time to discuss it', or 'please re-visit your training, you should not need support with this at this stage, ask your LM if you need additional help, not me'.
I'd also keep records of every time she contacted you to share with your LM as evidence of how she is draining your time.

What was the reason she was given for not being eligible?

She sounds like a nightmare and I encountered someone like her when I was a head-hunter. I came across this dreadful blowhard with "good" references from high quality accounts but they were churning through the roles. Never more than 18months in a post sometimes shorter and always their CV was written as though they were gods gift. They were total narcissistic self aggrandizing pushy mother fuckers who cartwheeled for clients but were a nightmare to work with.

@gerrithedom

Just not being sufficiently across the brief to manage leadership of accounts (which is one of the parts of the job spec for people at this level).

She was told at her HY review that for the next level up she should be managing accounts semi-autonomously but she isn't able to do this without a lot of hand-holding from senior staff.

She then proceeded to kick off and say that she had been promised a promotion at the HY stage but she was explicitly told that account management was a condition of promotion.

Really glad at this point that I'm not her manager or mentor. Urgh.

All hell would break loose if she was taken off (her accounts)

I've learned this morning she's been told she's not eligible for promotion at the end of this year. Nothing to do with me. It's going to get quite ugly and I think she may leave

All hell would break loose? It's going to get "quite ugly"??

I have to wonder how effective senior management is, who the hell's in charge here, and just why her probation was extended in the first place if she's so bad?

TBH they sound completely flaccid and it can't be doing anything for the general atmosphere. Hopefully they'll have the sense to just do what you mentioned and terminate her contract - and if not, more fool them

*It's meant to be a very light touch job for me: basically to check everything is ticking over, but it's taking hours of my time.

Although these are "her" accounts, she wants my advice on every element of the job and is apparently incapable of having any interaction with the client without running past me first*

Have you given her this feedback? And not in a passive aggressive way, but in a 'by now you should be comfortable and capable dealing with the client without the current level of handholding, I just don't have the time to be doing your job as well as my own so how can I support you taking a more independent working approach with regards to these accounts/this client, while still having oversight of what's going on'?

She's doing it to cover her arse I suspect, so probably comes across as confident but really has little confidence in her own abilities and doesn't want to get something wrong

Oh god, I have someone like this reporting into me. It sucks up so much of my time, sucks up the teams time and is just pointless.

I am now very direct to the point of blunt.

No, I do not have time for a "quick call", Teams or email me.

Did you check my diary before putting that meeting in? No, that time does not suit

Have you reviewed the work and made an assessment of what you think the problem statement is? Or are you coming to me straight away to 'chat it through' for my opinion without reading it through first.

This person has a complete lack of self awareness. Complete. To give an example, I was absolutely swamped, moving meetings on a particular day, trying to meet an urgent deadline. Explained this in a team briefing call at 9am which I finished early due to a regulatory commitment, said individual rang me about 15 mins later because they had been on holiday for a week and wanted to tell me all about it!!!! They had been in the call where I had clearly set this out and what the obligations were.

I now do everything on email, document everything, clear audit trail and give them very pointy responses.

Bane of my life, they do just enough to not be on a performance plan but it is exhaustinggggggg

It sounds like you're putting in a lot of effort and not seeing results, so for that reason alone you should remove yourself from the mentoring role.

It also sounds like no amount of support will help: this isn't a simple case of needing to learn the culture of a new organisation. She is fundamentally not right for the role, she's going to fail eventually and when she does, you can bet she'll try to take others down with her.

I would give her someone to mentor so that her time is all monopolised by them.

If ^ this isn’t possible I think you need to mention gently that she’s requiring a lot more reassurance and support than you’d expect by this stage, could you ask whether this stems from having her confidence in a previous job.

You could tell her that you simply don’t have time to deal with all of it and that from now on she’d have to take your word for it that she’s doing a great job.

There's a part of you that cannot resist her little girl pleas for help

I think there may be some truth in this. It wouldn’t be that difficult to ignore her/put your foot down if you put your mind to it.

I mean everyone knows what she’s like. You aren’t even her supervisor. Doubt you’d be in any trouble.

sounds like she has mental health issues, must be more to it. Shes anxious, she’s a mess, needs to see her GP.

It sounds like there are some mental health issues, ADHD/autism issues going on with this individual. I think her manager needs to have a welfare meeting with her to see what is actually going on. It is a very difficult situation but she obviously sees you as someone who has empathy, as others have said it is down to her manager to address. From my experience of people management employees often see managers in a 'parental' role. Do you have an employee assistance service which could offer some advice on how to handle?